Charlie LeDuff

In Detroit: An American Autopsy, Charlie LeDuff -- a Detroit native who left for 20 or so years to travel, get a journalism degree, and work at respected newspapers on both coasts, before returning to Detroit and a job The Detroit News -- gives us a history of Detroit from its founding through its decline, including up close and personal stories of the fall of Kwami Kilpatrick, the auto company bailouts, and the crazy things that happen in a rapidly shrinking city. The book is also a memoir show more of sorts of his own family's history: a family who was in Detroit almost from the beginning. LeDuff is a super straight talker and doesn't pull punches. He also really knows how to tell a story in a way that grabs and keeps a reader's interest. The book starts with Charlie, in his capacity as a reporter, checking out a lead about a dead body frozen into a pool of water at the bottom of an elevator shaft in one of Detroit's abandoned buildings. Sure enough, he found the corpse frozen into a block of ice, with only feet and sneakers sticking out. Miraculously, the shoes had not been stolen. He reports that it took more than a day for the police to respond to his call about the unidentified body. And that's just the beginning...LeDuff goes on to report on the sad state of public services in the city, including fire departments with old and broken equipment, crazy and/or corrupt politicians, and how whole sections of the city lose electricity for periods of time without notice.

I live in Michigan, and have lived in and near Detroit when in my 20s, and this book really got under my skin. It's really tragic that such a great city with so much history could fall so far because of corruption and mismanagement, and also changing times. LaDuff gives us history, plus a snapshot of some of the inner workings of the dysfunctional city in most recent times. There is some really unpleasant and graphic material, including R Rated text messages that were evidence in the Kilpatrick trial, so the book is not for the squeamish. Also, LeDuff isn't politically correct, and there's a gruff bravado that comes through in his writing that at first irritated me, but I eventually adjusted and didn't notice it because my interest in the content won out. show less

This book looks at the disintegration of an American city (Detroit), as well as the disintegration of family life and the American dream.

Charlie LeDuff is a journalist, and this book is not a history or an academic exploration of modern society. It's a tough, honest and personal look at a city, including street people, unemployed, corruption and decaying city services. The author provides stories about real people, and about his own family struggling in Detroit. It's an accessible book, but show more not easy to read because of the heartbreaking stories.

The book is important because Detroit may well be the proverbial canary in the coal mine -- a signal of what is to come to more large cities as manufacturing jobs move offshore. show less

Charlie LeDuff’s writing is a delicious combination of David Simon and Raymond Chandler. Thus, you get wonderful dialogue from hard-bitten murder police like:

“...This whole town is just a worm-infested shit pile, Charlie. I mean, there are good people, but they get lost in the incompetence. It’s a dead city. And anybody says any different doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.” He was smoking like wet wood.

LeDuff takes the reader on a whistle stop tour of Detroit, its show more history and its current state of decline. It’s faster paced and jumps around more than [b:Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets|18956|Homicide A Year on the Killing Streets|David Simon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1432402772s/18956.jpg|3187942] or [b:The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood|18957|The Corner A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood|David Simon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388202800s/18957.jpg|20297], as the city is the focus but its collapse has many facets. The type of reportage is very similar, though, as it is rooted in a familiarity with and lasting fondness for an urban area that has gone horribly wrong. Indeed, LeDuff comments on Detroit and Baltimore competing to be murder capital of the USA. The book is fascinating and involving, but very depressing. Detroit is in a shocking state and seems trapped in decline. LeDuff definitely isn’t optimistic about its future. He talks about being called negative for not reporting the good things happening in Detroit, commenting very reasonably that what ought to be normal is not news. Whereas the murder, arson, and pervasive political corruption should not be normal and thus deserve to be reported. Although his analysis of urban decay is less exacting than David Simon’s, LeDuff is a vivid and incisive writer and this book is a revealing portrait of Detroit. He warns that it represents America’s future - other cities had better hope not. show less

This bleak memoir revisits Detroit in its recent years, as the decades of slow collapse have come to a head and been (finally) noticed by the rest of the country. Charlie LeDuff is a native son, absent for many years, who brings his family home only to find that home is not what he remembers. A former reporter, LeDuff has a stark journalistic writing style that suits his subject and a brash voice that lights the fading city and its more recognizable citizens with an appropriately harsh show more brightness.

In fact, all this glare might be too much for some readers -- this is not the hopeful "things will get better" novelization nor the ruin-porn with glitzy pictures that lately have been highlights of literary Detroit. This book is personal -- more personal than I expected -- it is darkly humorous, it is grimly pragmatic, and it offers only the slimmest glimpse of encouragement as it grinds through pages of broken systems and broken people. I like its frankness, even when the urban brashness and downriver hyperbole get to be a little much; not everyone will.

LeDuff's book is a clear reflection of himself. After seeing him speak at a local bookstore, and hearing him read a few short passages, I recognized how authentic his writing is. It isn't perfect, not by a long shot, nor is it elegant... but it is an indelible transcription of his own speech. There is a certain beauty in that. Seeing him argue a political point and hearing his voice choke at an emotional moment in his own memoir also confirmed for me the intensely personal nature of his work; Charlie LeDuff cares about Detroit and, in many ways, the redeeming value of his book is that it might make you care too. show less